Assessment/Accountability
School and District Accountability and Assistance

School Panel Review Report
Dr. William R. Peck Middle School
Holyoke Public Schools

Introduction

The purpose of the School Panel Review Process is to assist the Commissioner of Education in determining whether State intervention is needed to guide improvement efforts in schools where students' MCAS performance is critically low, and no trend toward improved student performance is evident from MCAS data. The Dr. William R. Peck Middle School met this criterion at the eighth grade and was one of five middle schools selected for panel review in spring 2002. The panel review was conducted on April 11-12, 2002.

The review panel's charge was to analyze data and written information on the school's performance and improvement efforts, visit the school, and meet with school and district officials in order to advise the Commissioner on the answers to the following two key questions:

1. Does the school have a sound plan for improving student performance?
2. Are the conditions in place for the successful implementation of the school's improvement plan(s)?

The panel's responses to the two key questions that defined the scope of its review are included in this report. These findings and conclusions are the product of the panel's analysis, discussion, and observation, based on the evidence available to it. A list of panel members who participated in the review is provided in Appendix A. A detailed schedule of the panel's activities is provided in Appendix B.

The panel's findings and conclusions on the two key questions will be forwarded to the Commissioner of Education for consideration, together with school performance data, in determining whether the Dr. William R. Peck Middle School is deemed under-performing. The panel was not asked to formulate a sound plan for school improvement where such a plan does not presently exist, or to recommend a course of action to create the conditions for successful implementation of sound improvement strategies where such conditions at present do not appear to exist. Diagnostic and/or prescriptive intervention, where needed to assist an under-performing school, occurs at the next stage of the school review process.

Dr. William R. Peck Middle School Profile

The Dr. William R. Peck Middle School is one of three middle schools in the Holyoke Public Schools. The school's reported enrollment for 2001 was 928 students with 72% Hispanic, 25% White and 2% Black. Sixty percent of the students' first language is not English (FLNE) and 26% are Limited English Proficient (LEP). Peck is a School-wide Title I school with 65% of the students eligible for free or reduced-price lunch, more than twice the state average.

The enrollment has not varied by more than 28 students the past four years. The school Programs and Services report of February 12, 2002 indicates that 205 students receive special education services, 22% of the student population. Included in that population are three substantially separate classrooms. There are sixty-two students in the Transitional Bilingual Education Program (TBE) and 172 receive English as a second language (ESL) instruction. The average number of days absent for students in 2000 was 17.5, which is a decrease of eight from the preceding year. Seventy students in grade 7 were absent more than 20 days, as compared to 94 students in grade 8 and 75 students in grade 9. The 2000 school-year attendance rate for students was 90.3 as compared to 90.5 for the District and 93.9 for the state.

The student retention rate is 8.9 with 78 students being retained in 2000. The school is seventh out of 15 in retention rate in the Holyoke Public Schools. Two hundred thirty-seven students were suspended out-of-school in 2000 and 236 suspended in-school. The three-year out-of-school suspension rate of 29.5 is sixth highest in the district, and the three-year in-school suspension rate of 35.9 is the four highest in the district. Twenty-three students were excluded in 2000, the highest exclusion rate in the district.

Staffing

Dr. William R. Peck Middle's School's staff includes the principal, 3 assistant principals, 3 guidance counselors (one on waiver), 1 librarian, 6 long-term substitute teachers and 81 full-time teachers. Of the six long-term substitute teachers, two are on waiver for special education and one is on waiver for English as a second language. The other three long-term substitutes are not certified in the area of assignment. Other teaching staff not certified to teach in the area of assignment include: special education (2), mathematics (3), social studies/science (1), bilingual (1), foreign language (1) and reading (1). Fifty teachers hold a Master's Degree, and 52 hold certifications in more than one area.

MCAS Results

Dr. William R. Peck Middle School "Met" improvement expectations in ELA and "Failed to Meet" improvement expectations in Mathematics for Cycle 1 (1998-2001), and the overall improvement rating was "Critically Low."

The 2001 percentage of students scoring in the Failing/Warning performance level in ELA was 30%, which was an improvement of 13% from 2000. The 2001 percentage of special education students in the Failing/Warning level in ELA was 85%, an increase of 2% from 2000, and the percentage of LEP students was 81%, an improvement of 19%. The number of students reaching the Proficient level was 26%, a decrease of 1% from 2000, and no students reached the Advanced level.

The 2001 percentage of students in the Failing/Warning level in Mathematics was 76%, a decrease of 7% from 2000. The 2002 percentage of special education students in the Failing/Warning level of Mathematics was 100%, the same as the preceding year, and the percentage of LEP students was 98%, an improvement of 2% from 2000. The number of students reaching the Proficient level was 3%, a decrease of 3%, and no students reached the advanced level.

The data reflect virtually no increases in students moving to the Proficient or Advanced levels in English Language Arts or Mathematics between 1998 and 2001.

Panel Reponses To The Key Questions

KEY QUESTION 1: does The School Have A Sound Plan For Improving Student Performance?

While the staff and administrators of Dr. William R. Peck Middle School have begun an impressive process to revise the current school improvement plan to better reflect a thorough analysis of student performance data, the plan in its current form fails to rise to the level of a sound plan. The new process has involved a broad range of school personnel and has attempted to identify root causes for the significant achievement gaps between student subgroups. This process represents a strong beginning, but the key building blocks of the plan - accurate identification of root causes, strategies derived from root causes, and measurable progress indicators -- need further delineation, alignment, and prioritization.

A. Has the school analyzed appropriate data and program information to accurately identify the gaps in student performance and determined why those gaps exist?

With the assistance of a team of six central office administrators, 17 members of the Peck Middle School staff undertook an intensive effort to review data on student performance in order to identify areas of weakness and gaps in performance among student groups. As part of this intensive effort begun in February 2002, the Peck school improvement plan review committee considered performance on MCAS tests and trends in Terra Nova rankings to identify specific areas in need of improvement. The review committee provided the panel review team an extensive list of test results disaggregated for ethnicity, gender, poverty, first language proficiency, and special education classification. The Peck committee compared its performance with that of the other Holyoke middle schools and examined student performance by place of birth as well as by other factors.

As a result of this comprehensive review of student achievement, the Peck school improvement review committee identified overall achievement in all test areas below the state average as its primary problem. The failure rates of 100% for Peck's special education students and near 100% for the limited English proficient population represents an unacceptable achievement gap between regular education students and these two large subgroups.

While the school has conducted a thorough review of available measures of student performance, it has not conducted a similarly thorough assessment of its academic program. The plan does reflect the beginning of a review of curriculum, particularly in describing the time demands of the Connected Mathematics Program (CMP). For example, the 2002-2003 Peck SIP indicates that CMP recommends sixty-minute classes, but the class periods at Peck are only 45 minutes each. In addition, many teachers asserted in the open response survey that they are responsible for aligning the school's curriculum with the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks, but there does not appear to be in place a coordinated, school-wide effort to facilitate this process. Several school personnel also indicated that special education students do not have access to the general education curriculum.

A large number of references in the Peck school improvement plan refer to training in alternative instructional techniques, but the review committee has not yet completed an assessment of instructional quality to determine whether teaching is ineffective or whether teachers are unskilled in the particular strategies required for improved student performance. School representatives used anecdotal evidence from 'walk-arounds' by the assistant principals as an indicator that instructional strategies are not effective, but several veteran teachers were highly praised for their quality, suggesting that a focused assessment of instructional quality would reveal a range of skill among the faculty. Given its short timeline for completing its work, the review committee did not conduct a thorough survey of the unique needs of individual teachers to provide a focus for the school improvement plan's strategies. In addition, there is only one professional development day per year, and the plan provided no strategies as to how professional development was to be addressed.

In general, while the Peck review committee has identified a number of gaps in student achievement on standardized tests as problem areas, it has not conducted the analyses of the school's academic program and instructional quality required for accurate identification of the specific reasons for poor student performance.

In addition to gaps in the identification of problem areas, the Peck school improvement plan identifies apparent causes of student achievement problems that may or may not be the root causes. Rather, the plan's "key problem/ root causes of the problem" column often reiterates the outcome indicators (poor test scores in MCAS, for example) as the "problem" and attributes causes to student subgroup characteristics rather than to curriculum or instruction. In one instance, the SIP lists "Students in ESL and Special Education are scoring significantly lower than mainstream students." as a 'root cause' of a key problem. However, the committee did not probe more deeply to identify the reasons why special education and ESL students are achieving at such low levels, the answer to which would more appropriately be labeled a 'root cause.' In another instance, the school identifies a root cause of poor mathematics performance as "There is a lack of sufficient after school math support for students." While this may be an indicator of a weakness in the Peck academic support program, it is not likely a root cause for poor performance of the identified student groups since it does not consider the content of the academic program to which students are exposed during the school day or the level of performance teachers expect of them.

Since the review committee did not have available a comprehensive assessment of curriculum and instruction at Peck to consider alongside the detailed analysis of student achievement information, it is difficult to accurately identify the reasons why student performance weaknesses exist among the particular populations identified by the achievement analysis. The Peck improvement plan identifies a broad list of problems and apparent causes without sufficient supporting evidence to facilitate the selection of appropriate strategies to remedy weaknesses. Peck is only at the earliest stage of its diagnosis of the root causes of poor student performance.

During the panel review visit, different stakeholder groups identified different "problems" that were at the core of the poor performance of Peck's students. Parent focus group participants suggested that the lack of differentiation for varying student abilities made it difficult to address specific student learning needs at the appropriate pace or with the optimal instructional style. Teacher survey responses refer to the lack of parental involvement and the lack of resources as significant problems at the school. The principal's Leadership Report proposes that literacy weaknesses, lack of qualified teachers, professional development needs of teachers, limited academic support services for low achievers, and curriculum needs in math and science as five problem areas at Peck. The new superintendent has just begun to examine individual school problems closely, but wonders if expectations of students may be too low to motivate students to higher academic achievement. From these interviews, it appears that there are still many variations on beliefs about the core problems hindering improvement at Peck which have yet to be synthesized into a common focus for the school's improvement efforts.

B. Does the plan set out specific improvement objectives that are grounded in the school's analysis of the reasons for poor student performance?

While the revised 2002-2003 Peck School Improvement Plan offers far more detail than previous plans, its analysis of the root causes for poor student performance has not been fully explored or clearly articulated. The student achievement targets listed in the Revised 2002-2003 SIP are broad and not clearly linked to the reasons student achievement follows the patterns identified in the score reports. For example, Objective 1.2 proposes, "Student scores will be more evenly distributed over the four quartiles as reported by Terra Nova." In the most recent administration, the quartile distribution for all students was 13/24/32/31. For ESL students, the distribution was 2/2/13/85 and for Special Education students the range was 0/0/5/95. There is no indication in the school's analysis why the target was proposed, nor does the plan explain how the substantial gaps between the distribution among all students and those in the ESL and Special Education subgroups will be addressed. In another instance, the writing goal lists an objective that declares, "All students will increase their performance by 5-7 points on the ELA portion of the MCAS yearly." (Similar objectives are defined for History/Social Science and Science/Technology and Engineering, and Reading). The school's analysis does not identify the specific areas where their efforts will be likely to provide the support students need to reach the improvement targets.

As noted in the previous section, the revised Peck school improvement plan does not accurately identify root causes for poor student performance. There is confusion among the objectives, strategies/action steps, and progress indicators listed in the newest version of the plan as well. In the panel review team's judgment, many of the "strategies /action step(s)" in the SIP are more properly called broad objectives or goals ("develop mentoring programs"; "coordinate lessons and themes with the Unified Arts teachers"), and a number of the "progress indicators" are descriptions of future action steps ("share student work at cluster time"; "form a committee. . ."; "analyze samples of student work"). Overall, the school's academic "objectives" in its 2002-2003 revised SIP describe student performance targets that cannot be considered realistic without further articulation of the reasons for selecting the targets and clear links between the targets listed in the objectives and the areas identified as student weaknesses.

(In addition to the five academic goals, the 2002-2003 Peck School Improvement Plan defines two non-academic goals, one in the area of school climate and another intended to improve parent involvement. For the purposes of the panel review, only the academic goals were reviewed in depth.)

C. In order to accomplish each improvement objective, does the plan specify strategies which appear likely to lead to improved student results?

As noted earlier, Peck Middle School is in the early stages of developing accurate diagnoses of student learning needs. Most of the strategies/ action steps identified in the 2002-2003 Peck school improvement plan are broad and not clearly defined. Many could be classified as "structural" - related to the organization and staffing needs of the school. A number of other strategies refer to teacher training, describing what will be done for teachers rather than what teachers will do with expertise gained to help students. A third category of strategies describes program implementation or enhancement, and a fourth category includes instructional recommendations. In some cases, "strategies" are more like "progress indicators" (i.e., students will "develop an MCAS math vocabulary").

Overall, the strategies listed in the Peck plan are only indirectly linked to the student weaknesses identified in the comprehensive data analysis that is reported in the plan. In every analysis conducted by the Peck SIP review committee, there is clear indication of a huge gap between the performance of limited English proficient and special education students and the regular education population. While some of the strategies and action steps listed in the plan address learning opportunities for those specific populations, many more action steps refer to generic needs at the school. A monthly writing committee, a school newspaper, block scheduling and assessing CMP (Connected Mathematics Project) implementation are actions that are likely to serve the needs of the general population more than the students showing the weakest performance on standardized measures. CMP materials are not presently available in Spanish, preventing bilingual students from benefiting from improved instruction or increased teacher training in this area. According to the school, they will be available in Spanish in the fall of 2002. School personnel reported that the special education population does not have access to the same curriculum as the general population, suggesting that their performance on MCAS would not likely be enhanced with many of the strategies in the SIP. This gap between most of the suggested strategies and the students in greatest need for remedial assistance limits the likelihood that the strategies as described will lead to improvement in student achievement.

In at least one case, the Peck SIP review committee has clearly linked a strategy with an identified student weakness. In examining Terra Nova and MCAS performance among students who had access to the extra instruction available from the writing specialist and from the Soar to Success reading program, committee members noted a significant positive difference between the scores of students who were served by the writing and Soar to Success teachers and those who did not have access to those programs. In the plan, the committee suggests action steps to "provide supplemental writing instruction for LEP, SpEd and grade 8 mainstream (students)" and "training for teachers in LINKS, SOAR, and ESL strategies." In this example, the committee has clearly linked the strategy with the identified need, using their own knowledge of student class assignments to identify student subgroups and connecting a subgroup (Soar or non-Soar students) to its own performance results.

A large number of the strategies outlined in the Peck SIP are factors beyond the school's own control, such as recruiting reading teachers and petitioning for a change in the district's promotion policy. While these strategies/ action steps may eventually support the overall quality of Peck Middle School, the inclusion of these remote efforts distracts from the plan's attention to actions that can be taken by school staff directly to enhance student achievement.

Several improvement efforts already underway at Peck were mentioned during the panel review visit but are not thoroughly described in the planning document. Teachers in each cluster meet weekly with district academic coordinators to focus on examining student work. Teachers reported they also use cluster meetings to engage in discussions about alternative teaching methods. Since January, monthly "vertical" meetings within subject areas have been scheduled within these academic cluster meetings to improve communication and articulation of the curriculum between grade levels. (Regretfully, the special education teachers are not associated with the clusters and have few opportunities to participate in these professional growth experiences.) The eighth grade schedule has been modified to provide an "extra" math period per day in which all teachers work with students to prepare for the upcoming MCAS assessments. The development of individual student success plans, required by the state to identify strategies to help students failing one or more MCAS tests, has been discussed but not yet implemented. While these initiatives are promising evidence of staff commitment to improvement, they are in their early stages, and no plan has been articulated to measure their effectiveness at raising student achievement.

D. Are the school's written improvement planning document (s) clear and specific enough to guide their implementation of planned improvement initiatives?

As currently structured, the 2002-2003 Peck school improvement plan includes a large number of strategies and actions that address a wide range of concerns. The seven goal areas are not prioritized, and the strategies within each goal are not listed in order of importance. Progress indicators are vague and are not easily monitored, and timelines for implementation and completion of actions are not clearly defined. In many cases, district office personnel are assigned responsibility for actions without assurance their services will be available. For the plan to be fully implemented, many action steps require resources beyond those currently available.

While the SIP is formatted in an organized way, the actual work to be done is difficult to discern. Some areas are to be studied by committee, some committees are to be formed, research is to be conducted, and brainstorming required. "Explore ways to motivate students to achieve" is listed as a strategy/action step, but without more detail, either within the document or in an addendum, the plan to implement contests and activities as described in this strategy is unclear and unlikely to be carried out. "Evaluate materials that impact student ability to engage" is a science and technology action step that does not tell teachers what materials might be considered or how those materials might be used to supplement existing curriculum.

Many of the strategies are broad and global, not a concise plan of action. "Increase the use of computer technology" is an action designed to address the need for supplemental math programs during the school day, but the action does not suggest what type of computer technology would be desirable or who will oversee the quality of its use. "Develop monthly school wide reading strategies" does not explain who, how or why this strategy will have an impact on student achievement.

Plans to monitor the implementation and effectiveness of proposed actions as well as the capacity to measure incremental progress toward improving student performance are not clearly articulated in the Peck SIP. Some progress indicators begin with the statement, "form a committee to. . ." and others include meeting minutes or workshop attendance lists. While these may serve as preliminary implementation checks, the plan includes few measures of the quality of a strategy or the impact of an action on student achievement. Timelines for the implementation of action steps are quite broad, often listed as 'on-going' or "Spring 2002 to June 2003." The plan does not specify intermediate benchmarks that can be used as progress indicators particularly for the long-term initiatives.

When asked to describe what their responsibilities are to implement the strategies in the plan, teachers interviewed during the panel visit were unable to cite specific aspects they were implementing in their classes beyond continuing the LINKS strategies and the CMP math program. Without a focus on one or two realistic actions, the Peck SIP will be difficult for teachers to use to guide instructional planning.

E. Was the School Improvement Plan developed through a process that will support its successful implementation?

The 2002-2003 Peck School Improvement Plan was developed through a process that has been significantly different from earlier school improvement planning processes. When the school was notified it would be undergoing a review, the principal and district leaders tapped into local expertise and recruited a committee consisting of six central office staff, a representative of each of Peck's nine clusters, and administrators to construct a school improvement plan that reflected the needs of Peck students. The other two middle schools in the Holyoke district have participated in a panel review, and the district liaison who worked with those schools was assigned to assist Peck staff in their endeavor.

Previous school improvement plans have been compiled by the principal and selected staff members and submitted to the school council for their review. Drafts of the 2002-2003 plan were also submitted to the school council for comment. During the process begun in February 2002, cluster representatives presented ongoing drafts of the SIP to their cluster colleagues and carried their comments and suggestions back to the full committee. Teachers praise the recent process because they can see their own input in the latest draft of the SIP completed just prior to the panel review.

Parents were not as involved as were teachers in the development of the 2002-2003 Peck SIP. Those recruited to serve on the focus group panels for the review visit attended a planning session recently during which they were invited to discuss their conception of the needs of students at Peck. Copies of the current 2002-2003 draft and the previous four Peck improvement plans were distributed to that group. While this sample group of parents expressed familiarity with the plan, they honestly reported that they had never seen earlier plans, nor did they know whether they and other parents would be expected to play a role in the implementation of the current plan's action steps.

When staff members were asked their role in plan implementation, they explained they were expected to read it and take notes on what they need to do to implement its strategies. Every teacher who participated during the panel review indicated they have a copy of the plan and use it for guiding their lessons. Some of the strategies teachers indicated were math vocabulary, attending to standards and strands from the MA Curriculum Frameworks when planning lessons, and use of the LINKS strategies in their content area. There were a range of responses when teachers were asked if they were implementing the plan as they were expected to. Several commented that resources are not available to make it possible to offer the programs identified in the plan, such as Spanish LINKS and CMP materials. Some teachers were more enthusiastic and specific in their description of their implementation of the plan during the balance of this school year. Several permanent substitute teachers are serving populations identified through the analysis of student performance as having significant needs, but their participation in the development and implementation of the plan was not explored in detail.

Administrators also explained that the 2002-2003 Peck SIP is a guiding factor in the selection of professional development offerings. In the past, teachers reported that the professional development 'menu' was defined by school leaders to appeal to a broad range of staff interests. The intention for the coming year is to designate professional training sessions linked directly to the strategies and action steps included in the SIP. In the existing contract, the district allots one professional development day per year, with additional training opportunities offered during the regular school day. In preparation for the panel review, the new superintendent provided stipends and substitute teachers to allow members of the Peck SIP Review Committee to meet full days out of school for six weeks. The superintendent also expressed hopes to increase professional development funds to allow for at least 10.5 days for the coming year, but weak economic conditions may limit available resources.

A number of the strategies in the 2002-2003 Peck SIP are continuations of current initiatives, namely the LINKS strategies and CMP implementation. As far as could be determined, there have been no formal assessments of the effectiveness of the earlier initiatives. When asked to explain how the decision was made to continue some earlier projects and discontinue others, school personnel could not clearly articulate what criteria were used to determine why these decisions were made. Informally, some staff members described a general feeling that the Turning Points improvement initiatives, as one example, were not addressing the specific needs of Peck teachers and students. As a result of this generalized impression, the school is planning to develop a relationship with the New England League of Middle Schools (NELMS) and phase out their relationship with Turning Points. NELMS proposes to focus more intently on classroom instruction than did the Turning Points program, which matches more closely the needs of Peck teachers and students. In this one example, Peck staff have responded to changing needs, but there does not appear to be a formal way to make similar determinations for the initiatives identified in the strategies/ action plans mentioned in the 2002-2003 Peck SIP.

KEY QUESTION 2: Are The Conditions In Place For The Successful Implementation Of The Improvement Plan(s)?

Although there is widespread support for the revised 2002-2003 school improvement plan, the refinement and implementation of the plan will require extensive and sustained commitment of resources from the district and school. The school leadership has yet to realistically assess the strategies listed in the plan and prioritize the action steps for implementation of the various initiatives within the limits of available resources. Uncertainty about the availability of financial and human resources suggests that the conditions are not securely in place to support the successful implementation of the Peck improvement plan.

A. Does the school have effective leadership and sound management?

The school appears to have sound management in place. This is evident in the programmatic design of the school - teachers have regularly scheduled "vertical" meetings as well as common planning times in their clusters. In a number of interviews, teachers commented that they enjoy the opportunity to talk to each other about the work they are doing in the classroom. These meetings serve as an important vehicle for communication between administrators and faculty because of their frequency and regularity.

The atmosphere at the school is pleasant, and the teachers and administrators seem to be mutually supportive. In teacher surveys, there are expressions of strong support for the principal. They report that he is clear about setting the expectation that they exhibit a "standards-based" mindset, although all agree that this phrase is not clearly defined.

Instructional leadership is less strong at Peck in part due to the wide number of initiatives underway and new ones planned. The need for focus on a few issues is emphasized by the varying responses of different stakeholders about the core problems facing Peck. While the principal's Leadership Report identifies science and math and core areas of need, the SIP includes goals in all five academic areas with little distinction about priority needs. The plan omits priority guidance for teachers and administrators to help inform decisions about use of resources and the focus of improvement efforts. Without focused attention on the critical areas of need as identified in the analysis of student performance results, it is uncertain whether school leaders can provide the guidance needed to assure that the school's improvement initiatives will meet success.

B. Is there evidence that the school's faculty supports the planned improvement efforts?

In interviews with panel members, the faculty representatives on the review committee consistently expressed strong support for the revised SIP. They say that they are "proud" of it and that they have learned a lot from the process of putting the plan together. While Peck faculty appreciates the support they received from the central office, they believe that the plan is truly a product of the hard work that they have done together as a faculty. As mentioned earlier in this report, faculty feel their input has become part of the plan since they were engaged weekly in review of each draft as it became available. Consequently, staff has strong beliefs that the improvement strategies outlined in the SIP will help them improve student performance because they are designed to address the issues that they as a faculty have identified in the needs assessment.

Some staff support for the improvement initiatives comes from the faculty's anecdotal reports that they have seen improvement in the writing skills of seventh grade students who have had a year of LINKS strategies during sixth grade. In addition to writing improvement, teachers report improved student attitudes toward learning. There are also reports of benefits for teachers of the "talking about students" they do during cluster and vertical academic meetings. These successes have inspired optimism about the potential for the effectiveness of the school improvement plan.

C. Is the school receiving adequate guidance and support from the district leadership?

Both the teachers and administrators have reported that the school district - under the guidance of the new superintendent - has provided them with abundant support and guidance over the past three months. A district liaison with experience in school improvement planning was assigned to Peck, and six central office personnel were assigned to the 2002-2003 Peck school improvement plan review committee. District curriculum coordinators began meeting weekly with cluster teams to examine student work and discuss alternative instructional strategies.

While it is clear that the Holyoke School District has been supportive of Peck over the short term, it is uncertain whether the district can sustain its provision of financial and human resources to support this school's improvement initiatives over the long term. Approximately half the initiatives in the Peck SIP involve professional development funds, teacher overtime stipends, or consultant time. Reliance on the district to resolve the serious problems of the scarcity of certified and subject-trained personnel is a significant condition that is at the center of many of the Peck improvement hopes. In interviews during the visit and in their survey responses, teachers confirmed the SIP list of needed resources from the district, including instructional materials, particularly for limited English proficient and special education students, professional development opportunities, large class sizes and district-wide retention policies. The faculty at Peck appreciate the services and tools the district has provided recently, including the comprehensive data analysis of Terra Nova results and the "Test Whiz" item analysis of MCAS scores. But faculty also express concern that the school's continued improvement depends on the assistance of specialists at the central office who may or may not be able to offer their concentrated attention to Peck in the future.

In discussions during the panel review visit, team members learned that there is a district-wide task force considering reconfiguration of schools, including Peck. One proposal under discussion is to divide the Peck facility into two to serve as two "schools," one elementary and one middle school, with half the current Peck population moving to an available site as a "new" middle school. Concerns were raised when it was learned that there are no representatives from Peck on the Task Force. (One teacher from the Holyoke High School was on the task force.) If the reconfiguration plans should be completed, the Peck principal was unsure how that would impact implementation of the various strategies in the 2002-2003 Peck School Improvement Plan. He suggested there may be need of extensive revisions in light of the 'smaller' size of the middle school component at Peck.

Conclusion

While Peck staff have made a strong start over the past three months in developing an improvement plan that will meet the extensive needs of its students, the current plans lack key elements that are required to make it a sound plan for guiding school efforts: identification of fundamental root causes of student academic weaknesses, direct linkage between the strategies for improvement and the reasons for poor student performance, and measurable benchmarks to monitor progress and respond to changing conditions. In addition, the plan relies heavily on uncertain financial and human resources for many of the solutions to the school's problems. Until strategies are identified that function within realistic expectations for available resources, the conditions are not in place to support the success of the 2002-2003 Peck Improvement Plan.

Appendix A
Team Members

Dr. Karen S. Angello, Panel Coordinator, Consultant to the ESE
Dr. Karen Laba, Panel Chairperson, SchoolWorks, Project Manger, Beverly, MA
Aretha Miller, Team Member, Program Manager, Center for Youth Development in Education, Boston, MA.
Beverly McCloskey, Team Member, Principal, Burrell Elementary School, Foxborough, MA
Gail Arsenault, Team Member, Director of Curriculum for the Northbridge Public Schools, Whitinsville, MA
Joanne Grenier, Team Member, Director of Instructional Services (6-12) for the Marlborough Public Schools
Peter Davies, Wessex Associates and Consultant to ESE, will serve as a monitor. The monitor observes the panel to ensure they adhere to the protocol of the review process. He will be attending the Thursday meeting as well.

Appendix B
Evaluating School Performance
Detailed Schedule for Review Panel School Site Visit

The times specified on the following schedule may be adjusted slightly to align with the daily schedule and practices in each of the schools being reviewed.

Day 1

Day 2 : All activities take place in the school